Archibald Gracie III

Archibald Gracie III (1 December 1832-2 December 1864) was a Brigadier-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Biography
Archibald Gracie III was born in New York City, New York in 1832 to a wealthy family of cotton exporters, and he studied at the prestigious University of Heidelberg in Germany for five years. He graduated from West Point in 1854 and worked for Barings Bank in Mobile, Alabama, where his family had invested in the cotton trade. He later became President of the Barings Bank of Alabama, and he became a Major of the 11th Alabama Regiment of the Confederate States Army when the state seceded from the Union. In 1862, he commanded a company of sharpshooters at Yorktown under John B. Magruder, and he briefly served in Tennessee at Perryville, Tullahoma, and Chattanooga as a Brigadier-General. He was sent to Richmond to join P.G.T. Beauregard's army after being wounded in 1864, and he served in the trenches of Petersburg when the Union army besieged the city. On 2 December 1864, a day after his birthday and a day before he was due to see his newborn baby daughter back at home, he was killed by an exploding shell while looking at Union positions with a telescope.